The National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee (NIDAC) is calling for investment into drug and alcohol rehabilitation services for non-violent offenders in an effort to combat high Indigenous incarceration levels.

Accounting firm Deloitte Access Economics was commissioned to investigate the costs and benefits of addressing problematic alcohol and drug use with treatment rather than prison sentences.

NIDAC chairman Professor Ted Wilkes says imprisoning offenders is not working and a move towards rehabilitation needs to be considered.

"We would certainly promote residential rehabilitation and treatment services as an alternative to incarceration and that is what this report is really about," he said.

"There aren't too many of our mob that haven't got a record.

"They don't qualify to be diverted... so we need to seriously look at how we do it for Aboriginal Australians."

Aboriginal people make up just 2.5 per cent of Australia's population but account for one third of all female and a quarter of all male prisoners.

On average, 1,000 teenagers are locked up in juvenile detention centres every night.

We would certainly promote residential rehabilitation and treatment services as an alternative to incarceration and that is what this report is really about.

Professor Ted Wilkes, NIDAC chairman

Aboriginal boys make up over half of that figure - the majority for crimes committed while they were intoxicated.

Professor Wilkes says he is furious so little has changed over decades.

"[Using] prisons as a last resort was promised to us in 1991 with the royal commission into deaths in custody," he said.

"It hasn't happened ... the imprisonment rate of Aboriginal women since 1991 has increased 341 to 343 per cent.

"There is a need for prisons - we are talking about a particular end of the incarceration sphere that we need to have a better look at."

Two weeks ago inmates destroyed a juvenile detention centre in Perth. The teenage detainees are now locked up in an adult prison while the centre is being repaired.

"The people who induced that should be reprimanded in an appropriate way," Professor Wilkes said.

"If you are talking about 74 kids, I know that not all of those kids would have wanted to do what happened.

"You could save about $111,000 per prisoner in a year for each offender who is diverted.

"That comes from a variety of different savings, in particular the differences of costs... but also because of other positive outcomes such as reduced reoffending rates that are associated with the rehab facility and better health outcomes," she said.

Actor Dean Daley-Jones regularly visits Casuarina Prison in Perth.

"The first Christmas I remember with my mum, and one of my sisters and I just saw lots of Aboriginal men, everyone I knew," he said.

"We were always visiting someone in jail ... it wasn't until my mid-20s that I thought: 'What is going on here?'"

For Aboriginal people, there's not a lot of assistance there - there's not a lot you can do.

[People] should be given every opportunity. I had to re-educate, went back to an adult school, just to improve on my reading and writing.

Byron Wright, Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council South Australia

Mr Daley-Jones says he had his own run-ins with the law when he was younger.

"My mother wrote a letter to me once when I was locked up for the weekend at Fremantle watch house," he said.

"I read this letter and she had some key points. [She said] 'I didn't bring you into this world to see you end up like this' and a few other things.

"She [talked] about proud Indigenous men who have overcome the same traumatic stuff I was going through and this anger."

'Better deal'

Byron Wright from the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council in South Australia say offenders are not being given enough assistance.

"In South Australia, the only rehabilitation centre that allocated for the whole family closed down," he said.

"For Aboriginal people, there's not a lot of assistance there - there's not a lot you can do.

"[People] should be given every opportunity. I had to re-educate, went back to an adult school, just to improve on my reading and writing."

Mr Wright works in remote communities in South Australia, helping tackle drug and alcohol abuse.

He overcame a drug addiction of his own that led to stints in jail when he was a teenager.

He learnt to read and write when he was 38, going on to complete tertiary education.

"I think, personally, a rehabilitation centre would have been a lot better going to jail," he said.

"If you are in jail, you can't fix the issues you have. You are locked up, you are incarcerated, there's no way of fixing the issues you had before you got into trouble.

"One would argue [it's] a lot better to deal with the issues that's confronting somebody rather than incarcerating them."

Professor Wilkes says addressing the issue has become a lifetime commitment for him.

"This is not fair. If it is about me saying there is an indifference here that borders on bigotry, racism, and a difference of extreme, I'm prepared to stand up in front of other mob, and say: 'Hey, we deserve a better deal'."